


What We Search For

by AgentStannerShipper



Series: Star Trek Bingo 2020 [25]
Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, F/M, Implied abuse, Mild Sexual Content, Romulans, bittersweet memories, but its not graphic, more or less, referenced tasha yar and data, sela is bad with emotions, tasha got a shitty deal in the show and sela works through some of that herself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-08-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 08:35:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25846690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgentStannerShipper/pseuds/AgentStannerShipper
Summary: As much as Sela wished she could pretend otherwise, it was true that her mother was never far from her mind.Or;Sela reflects on her mother, and the man she lets share her bed.
Relationships: Lore/Sela (Star Trek), referenced Data/Tasha Yar, referenced Tasha Yar/other(s)
Series: Star Trek Bingo 2020 [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875274
Comments: 2
Kudos: 18
Collections: Star Trek Bingo Summer 2020





	What We Search For

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "Romulans" on my bingo card. Most of these are going to be datasha, but two Lorela fics did manage to sneak in. What can I say? I love these bastards. Also, what they did to Tasha in canon was royally fucked up.

As much as Sela wished she could pretend otherwise, it was true that her mother was never far from her mind. She was in the mirror and every Federation report, every snide whisper in the Senate that she wasn’t a _real_ Romulan and every new recruit into the military who scorned their half-human commander behind doors that weren’t as closed as they might have thought. She was in Sela’s father’s eyes, the way they hardened when he looked at her, the sound of his voice when he decried human weakness. She was in memory, in the dark of night, the lights nearly off in Sela’s bedroom as she sat up in her bed, staring up into the pitch black of the ceiling.

Sela had been four years old when her mother had gone. The execution had happened behind closed doors. Sela had never gotten to see the body. She remembered that night in sharp memory, the way her mother had stolen into her room, a bundle of supplies on her back, urging Sela to get dressed, to stay quiet, genuine fear in her crystal blue eyes as she glanced over her shoulder at the sliver of light in the half-open doorway. Sela hadn’t moved, and when her mother had taken hold of her Sela had screamed, had kicked and fought because her father was here, her home was here, and who was her mother to take her away from that?

It had gotten her mother killed, and something human in Sela had died that day. Not as much as she might have hoped, but something.

But Sela wasn’t four years old now. She was two decades beyond that, a young woman, a Commander in the Romulan military and a damn good one at that, no matter what people might say of her ‘disgrace’ with the Spock affair. It had been a temporary setback at best, and the strides Sela had made, the allies who had rallied behind her, had made her only more formidable. She glanced to her left, at the man laying sated in her bed, sprawled comfortably half-under the covers. It didn’t make her soft.

Still. In the darkness, Sela sat, and she remembered her mother. The human woman who had traded her freedom, her body, for the lives of her fellow officers. It was, in a pitiful way, almost commendable. That she, a proud _human_ security officer, had surrendered to a Romulan general, to take into his bed, was a thought that Sela wrestled with many a time. Sela was loyal to Romulus, to her people, but she could not imagine bearing such a fate herself. It was intolerable.

Had her mother hated her for that? Sela did not know. She ought to have done; Sela was the very embodiment of everything her mother should have reviled. Not just half a Romulan in birthright, but a tangible representation of the man who had broken her, who had claimed her body as his property and done with it as he pleased. Sela knew about non-Romulan consorts and their bastards. She was fortunate her father had not sought her death. She had done everything in her power to prove that she was worthy of that chance.

It made sense that her mother had tried to leave. Five years with a man she hated, five years with a people who hated her. It had to have been unbearable. Had she tried to take Sela with her because she hated her too? A half-Romulan prize for her precious Federation, to brainwash and trick, to make loathe her own people, perhaps even to spy on them for the Federation’s benefit. What a present she would have made. Romulan defectors – traitors all – were few. They would relish a child to torture, and her mother would be a hero for the gift.

But Sela remembered her mother’s smile. It hadn’t seemed the plotting smile of a woman raising a prize. It had felt real. It had felt, impossibly, like love.

Sela looked at the man again. His breathing was even, presumably in sleep, his face turned away from her and into the pillow. The covers had slipped down, revealing the pale expanse of his back, the skin unblemished and perfect, ghostly in the dark. Her lip curled. What did she know of love?

There was a story her mother had told her when Sela was young. It wasn’t a Romulan story, containing none of the legends or histories of her people. It was a military story, in a sense, which made it Romulan enough for young Sela to listen, but that was rarely the focus. The story had intrigued her imagination as a child, and she thought of it often now. Her mother had called it “The Story of the Man with Yellow Eyes and No Heart.”

The story itself changed, not in that it contradicted itself, but in that there were many stories her mother told. But it always began the same. _Once, years from now, there was a man with yellow eyes and no heart…_

And Sela would sit in her mother’s lap, or in front of her as she got her hair brushed, or curl up on the bed while her mother sat beside it, and she would listen.

He was a man from the stars, her mother told her. His skin seemed to shine with stardust, his eyes like twin suns. He was stronger than the strongest Romulan soldier, smarter than the smartest computer, his reflexes as fast as the shifting winds.

Here, Sela would interject. How could any being be so powerful? And her mother would smile.

He was a machine, she would say. Not a man of flesh but of circuits, a soldier built for war. Unique. But, she would add, he was not the perfect soldier. Because the man had one flaw that made him weak. He loved.

But how could he love without a heart?

Very simply: he loved with everything else instead. He loved so much, it shone through everything else. His great strength meant nothing to him if it could not help others, his intellect meaningless if it was not searching for the beauty of the universe. He was quick to act, but it was always to go to someone’s aid. He was a man built for war, but a man who lived for peace.

Sela stared at the comforter. She brought her knees to her chest. He would have made a decent Romulan, she thought. The military demanded loyalty, soldiers who would live and die for their countrymen. The way her mother spoke of him, Sela could hear the warmth in her voice.

Did you know him? she had asked as a child.

I did, her mother had said.

Did he love you too?

He loved everything. But me especially. And I loved him back.

And Sela’s eyes would go wide. More than Father? And her mother would glance towards the door, and her eyes would go hard. And whether Sela’s father was standing there or not, she would lift her chin and say yes. Yes, she loved him more than Father. She had loved him more than anything.

And if her father was there in the doorway, he would glower and turn away. Later that night, Sela would hear shouting and cries of pain, but she would not listen to them. But at the moment, all that mattered was the story.

It was a time of war, her mother said, a war that did happen and yet didn’t; one they were not living in but she had lived through. Sela had never understood it then, had dismissed it as a ploy for her childish attention, but she did understand now. She had worked it out, sometime after her mother’s death, that the stories were true. Her mother had come from the future to stop a war that no longer existed, and had cruelly destroyed Romulus’s victory with that one move. She had served aboard the starship _Enterprise_ , two of them in fact, with men and women of a future that was now Sela’s present, in linear time if not in spirit. With a man who, at that time, was likely just being made, his mechanical heart just starting to beat. A golden, mechanical man from the stars.

And the stories would vary, but the themes were always the same. The brave Federation – although her mother didn’t call it that, especially not in earshot of Sela’s father, because at that age Sela already knew she hated the Federation and everything it stood for – sending their flagship in to rally the fleet, on battles and missions to protect the people. How Sela’s mother served with pride, a security chief and tactician, fighting for her people. She had a captain she respected and comrades in arms that she considered her family. And by her side served the man with yellow eyes.

What did he do? Sela asked. She knew military positions even at that age, had already started to learn them from her father and nannies, preparing her for the day she would – with any luck – join their glorious military like her father before her.

But her mother didn’t give the man a military position. He did everything, she said. He was third in command, but he never tired, never slept. He could always be on guard if they needed him, and he served every role they could give him when his human crewmates needed rest. Her mother had grown first to admire him as a solider, then respect him as a friend. She told Sela about how he made her laugh, even when he did not understand the joke. How he would listen, without judging, just letting her lean against him and close her eyes and talk. How she had kissed him one day, and he had been startled, because he had not thought that a woman could love a man like him, but he had been grateful, because her mother was beautiful and brave in his eyes, and he loved her deeply.

Sela’s throat tightened, and she forced herself to swallow around it, clenching her jaw. Her fingers curled into fists against the mattress. Her mother was a pathetic human, she reminded herself. A warrior, but only as good as a human warrior could be. And she was pathetic, because she had been charmed by a smile from a man with nothing in his veins but cooling fluid. But the way she spoke of him…

Sela closed her eyes. She could hear her mother’s voice, soft and wistful. I loved him, she said, but I had to leave. If I didn’t, people would die. I didn’t belong. I’ve never belonged. Out of place, out of time. But I had a little time with him.

Her voice would drop off, and her gaze would lengthen, but when Sela tracked the line of her sight she wasn’t looking at anything. Just the wall, or the floor, or the ceiling, as if she could see far above to the sky, to a ship somewhere that she couldn’t reach.

She’d shake herself and come back. I stole that time from him, she’d say. To him, I may never have loved him at all. But he’s safe. And knowing that makes it worth it.

Tears pricked at Sela’s eyes. She sniffed, wiping them away in the dark. Her stomach was a mess of knots. The weakness of her human half, the burden that she could never scrub away. A Romulan did not cry for a traitorous mother. They did not cry for the Federation scum she had loved, the android who had captured her attention, her heart, the way no flesh and blood being had managed before or since.

The man beside her stirred, and Sela stiffened. She straightened her back, untucking her legs and clearly the last of the tears from her eyes. She couldn’t be found crying. She had shown enough weakness already.

“You know,” her bedpartner drawled, “if you wanted me to leave, you should have just said so.” He half-turned, grinning at her with bright yellow eyes and a smile full of mischief, dazzling and sharp in equal measure.

“You’ll leave when I tell you to,” Sela snapped.

He propped himself up on one elbow. “So, you trust me enough to sleep with me, but not enough to _sleep_ with me? I’m hurt.”

“Shut up,” she mumbled.

“Really, I am.” He pressed a fist to his chest, wincing theatrically. “Right here. I can’t take this agony anymore. My heart is breaking.”

“You don’t have a heart.”

He tipped his head, smirk still firmly in place. “True. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.” He shifted farther upright, braced on one hand. The blanket fell farther, pooling around his hips. “Come on, Commander. Something’s eating at you. Spit it out.”

“Absolutely, I’ll tell all my problems to a bounty hunter who represents only himself.” Sela resisted the urge to roll her eyes.

“I’ll have you know, I am _very_ interested in preserving my relationship with the Romulan government.” He drawled the words, his eyes heated, tracing her form. She was dressed, more than he was at least, in a nightshirt and pants where he was nude. “I just thought you might need someone to listen, that’s all.”

The human part of Sela gave way, just a bit. “I was thinking about a story my mother told me, when I was a child.”

“Mmm.” He hummed, only half paying attention. Half was more than enough for him, of course, and Sela didn’t think for a minute that he wasn’t listening. “This is the mother who got herself up and killed when you were a kid, wasn’t it?”

Sela’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”

“She told you bedtime stories? That’s cute.”

It was clearly a taunt, but Sela didn’t rise to it. She was Romulan, and she was better than that. “It was a human failing. Some…foolish desire to tell a child fairytales instead of practical stories.”

“Ah, yes, the old ‘teach the kids a lesson’ parable,” he laughed. He dropped onto his back, one arm tucked behind his head. “Of course, in the Empire, I’m sure all those stories are perfect for scaring the kids into little soldiers. A perfect military state.”

Sela’s lip curled. “The Empire-“

“Is great and glorious, will reign eternal, yeah, yeah.” He rolled his eyes, smirking at her. “I didn’t say it was a _bad_ thing. I’m not my brother, Commander. Some of us can appreciate a nice militaristic regime. So much less fussy about methodology than the Federation.”

Sela looked away. She heard the bed shift, and then a hand was skating up her side, fingers circling her breast as something half-hard nudged into her hip. “Well,” he purred. “If you’re up anyway…”

“You are insatiable.”

“One of my _many_ attractive qualities.” He bit down on her earlobe. “Admit it, you love it. You’ve got dozens of virile young Romulan soldiers under your command, and none of them have even half my stamina. They can’t keep up with you the way I can.”

Sela shrugged him away. For a moment, she expected his grip on her to tighten, but he let her go. She lowered her feet to the floor, wrapping her fingers around the edge of the bed as she stared at the wall. He was stronger than she was, and faster. Maybe even smarter. It would be so easy for him to turn it on her, to take advantage of her more than as a convenient and willing bedmate. He might not win, but he could try.

He never had. What did that say about him, Sela wondered? She had met his brother, in battles of might and wits. But Lore wasn’t beholden to the Federation as Data was. He had none of the honor, the sense of justice, however misguided. Sela had seen no evidence of the warmth in Data that her mother had spoken of, but she had seen something…almost haunted in his eyes when he looked at her. Lore may have matched his brother physically, but in personality, in emotionalism, they were world apart.

And maybe that was fitting. Her mother, a weak human who had given up herself for her Federation, had chosen an android without soul, without heart. But Lore…Lore was many things, but Sela would never say he didn’t have heart. It might have been cruel and calculated, but it was there, burning with passion at every turn, not just in her bed but in her council chambers, his eyes gleeful and ruthless as he watched her interrogations, never looking away no matter how bloody they got. There was fire in his android veins, enough to match even the fiercest of Romulans. He didn’t love her. But Sela had no use for love.

She turned, surprising him, catching his jaw hard with her hand and crushing her mouth to his, forcing him to surrender into the kiss. Because she was a Romulan, and that was what Romulans did. They fought, and they were victorious. He fought back, a fist in her hair, his teeth sharp against hers, but in the end he would submit. Sela would shove him down to the mattress, and he would go, grinning up at her, his face contorting in pleasure when she thrust herself down on him, sheathing his cock and riding him until she was satisfied. And she was always satisfied. Because Lore was right. He was better than any Romulan. Smarter and stronger and faster, with enough stamina to last as long as she commanded him to. But he had a weakness, and it was one far less juvenile and fairytale than his heart. Sela wasn’t a child anymore, curled up in her mother’s lap for a story about true love and honor. She was a woman, a commander, more Romulan in spirit than any full-blooded, sniveling senator could ever hope to be. And Sela knew how to exploit a man’s weakness.

And if she enjoyed herself doing it? Well. She was only human.


End file.
